I was up before the sun. Making coffee, reapplying Leukotape to my blistered feet, and getting ready to hike up the trail in search of a bull. As the sun began to rise, indistinct silhouettes slowly came into focus, signaling it was time. I ...
Elk
That Time Hunter S. Thompson Stole Hemingway’s Elk Antlers
Here’s a corner of American literature they won’t teach you about in class. Or maybe they do. What do I know? It’s a cool story, and if you have a cool teacher or professor, they could totally waste half a class with this one. Two ...
Fee Hikes for Wyoming Nonresident Special Tags Explained
A bill passed in the Wyoming state legislature on Feb. 27, 2023, and signed by Gov. Mark Gordon on March 2 substantially increases the cost of the nonresident special draw fee but leaves regular nonresident draw fees unchanged. On the surface, it may ...
Chasing the Lame Buffalo: From Hunting Men To Hunting Game
The weight of the rifle hung like a pendulum from my left arm. Sweat running down my forearm and through the holes in my Nomex flight glove mixed with the rich Afghan mountain dirt to form a gritty paste. The chalky feeling was like a pebble, a ...
Rich Landowner Bullies WY Elk Hunters in Corner Crossing Case
Brad Cape, John Slowensky, Zach Smith, and Phil Yeomans are four elk hunters from Missouri who planned a Wyoming elk hunt in 2021. They mapped out a route to public land using the onX Hunt app, a real-time GPS tracker that shows property lines that ...
Colorado Seeks Sharpshooters to Manage Booming Elk Herd
Do you love elk hunting and have some badass marksmanship skills? Colorado Parks and Wildlife could use your help. For the second year in a row, the agency is searching for sharpshooters to help manage the elk herd within the Great Sand Dunes ...
New Mexico Elk Hunting: Can 2 Buddies Kill 2 Bulls in 4 Days?
It was spring of 2021, and I was at the tail end of a yearlong deployment to the Middle East. It had tested every fiber of my being, and I was daydreaming about New Mexico elk hunting. “Why,” I wondered, “was I still dedicating my life to a ...
Elk Hunting Gear: A Complete Guide to Quality Kit
As the days get shorter and evening temperatures cool, it's hard to think about anything but elk. September is my favorite time of year for many reasons: new gear to test, new adventures to share with friends, but most importantly, I get to live a ...
Hunting Forecast 2022: Extreme Weather Could Be Bad For Hunting
Sweltering heat waves, devastating droughts, extreme flooding, and destructive wildfires throughout the country could point to a brutal hunting forecast this fall. Mule deer, elk, wild turkey, and waterfowl hunters specifically could feel the impact ...
Elk Reaper: The Rise and Bowhunting Success of Aron Snyder
On our short but steep hike to our spike elk camp in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado, Aron Snyder stops and looks at the ground. “A pretty decent-sized herd must have come through here in the last 12 to 24 hours,” he ...
Got a Few Million to Blow? Check Out These 7 Dream Hunting Properties
If you do any sort of hunting, the dream of owning a patch of wild game heaven has absolutely crossed your mind. Whether you’re a diehard whitetail hunter in the East or Midwest, if you chase elk and muleys in the West, or if you haunt cut corn and ...
Study Shows Elk Leave Public Land For Private During Hunting Season
A recent study from Brigham Young University (BYU) put some science behind elk movement during hunting season on the Wasatch Front, validating the importance of Utah private land elk hunts. When the broadheads and bullets start flying, more than ...
Shed Hunting Tips From Connor Clark: How to Rule the West
The annual antler drop — a remarkable few months when antlered critters drop their headgear — is a time period that’s as eagerly anticipated as the mule deer and elk ruts. For many shed hunters, the time of year is all about family and friends; large ...
First-Time Hunter, Grandmother Tags Bull During Wisconsin Elk Season
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources recently wrapped up its fourth annual lottery elk hunt, which proved to be a rousing overall success; nearly every hunter who drew a tag killed an elk during the 2021-2022 limited hunting ...
How Virginia’s First Tag Lottery for Elk Management Zone Bulls Will Work
The return of elk hunting in Virginia is expected to draw many people to the Commonwealth in 2022. And soon, hunters will have a shot at drawing for a chance to pursue Virginia bulls. The Department of Wildlife Resources recently announced formal ...
Dead Silent: How To Hunt Quiet Elk
Whenever we think of elk hunting during the rut, we think of monstrous, screaming bulls, bugling and chuckling as they canter after cows and chase off all challengers to their reign as kings of the mountain. We fantasize about calling them in, ...
Montana Elk: New Regs Could End Bull Hunting on Some Public Lands
Proposed changes to Montana elk hunting regulations could make tagging a bull more challenging for public land hunters and open up more opportunities for landowners. With large concentrations of elk on private land causing damage to ranches ...
Utah Drops Proposed Elk Hunting Lottery, Will Issue OTC Tags in 2022
Considered one of the last over-the-counter (OTC) permit opportunities for hunters in Utah, elk hunting tags have become a hotter ticket than toilet paper during the first COVID lockdown. Even still, a recent proposal from the state Division of ...
Utah Elk Hunting: Intense Backcountry Rescue Saves Hunter’s Leg
Utah hunter Coy Kummer hoped to end his elk season hauling out a big bull. Instead, it ended with a broken leg, a wild rescue, and several major surgeries. On Oct. 10, 22-year-old Coy and his father, Brian Kummer, were hunting the northern ...
Virginia Elk Are Back! Whitetail Hunter Tags 700-Pound Home-State Bull
Richard Bryson always takes two weeks’ vacation during Virginia’s early muzzleloader season, which gives him so extra time to work on filling his deer tags every year. He never expected to use one of those tags to check a bull elk, but that’s exactly ...
Father Shot, Killed While Elk Hunting With Son: Importance of Gun Safety
Every year we hear about the injuries or tragic deaths of hunters across the country due to unsafe actions in the field. Unharnessed falls from treestands, negligent firearm discharges, misidentified targets, failed fence crossings, and drownings are ...
Three Late-Season OTC Western Hunts You Can Do Right Now
Didn’t draw a tag this year? Perhaps you just couldn't plan a 2021 Western hunt in time, or maybe you just weren’t sure you could get away from work or family. You must be feeling some major FOMO right now as you scroll through the socials, liking ...
Colorado Elk Hunting: Herds Are Thriving on the Plains Once Again
In the early 1980s, hunting areas along the state of Colorado’s eastern plains provided equal opportunity for upland, waterfowl, mule deer, and pronghorn. Whitetails were a bit of a rarity. Rifle and bowhunters would bump into a heavy-horned brute if ...
Elk Rescue: Colorado Elk Freed From Tire After Two Years
A bull elk in Pine, Colorado, found himself in a tight spot when he somehow got his head stuck in a car tire, leading wildlife officers on a two-year chase that ended with an unusual elk rescue. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers first observed ...
Elk vs. Moose: Know Your Bulls
Some hunters have a problem with animal identification. We’re not talking about understanding the subtle taxonomic differences between a yellow pine chipmunk, cliff chipmunk, and uitnta chipmunk. No, hunters are having a hard time identifying elk vs. ...
World Record Bulls: The Top 5 Typical Archery Elk
There are big bull elk. Then there are really big, world-record-class bull elk. The Pope and Young Club awards North America’s finest archery-killed wapiti by size in two categories: typical or symmetrical antlers and non-typical or unsymmetrical ...
Trophy Elk: The Top 5 Non Typical Archery Bulls of All Time
An archery stalk on any elk is no easy task, but getting bow-and-arrow close to the biggest bull elk in the world is another thing altogether. Elk are uber wary, have highly evolved senses, and tend to vanish if they even think something isn’t right. ...
So You Want to Shoot an Archery World Record?
Potential world record big game animals exist no matter your home range. (There’s a freak in every crowd.) But some regions are just downright better than others when producing archery world-record animals. What makes these places so unique? No one ...
How to Score a Bull Elk
You just sent an arrow through the bull of a lifetime. The adrenaline has finally subsided. Your hands stop shaking. You realize when your buddy said, “He’s big,” it was a goddamn understatement. You grab an immense G4. It’s nearly as thick as a soda ...
Hunter Shoots Possible Lightning-Struck Elk in Montana
Minnesota native Brandon Dahring shot the first elk of his archery hunting career late last month in Montana. Of all the shot scenarios that played out in his head before the trip, he never imagined his 300 feet-per-second arrow finishing the job ...
